England under Henry VIII

ENGLAND
UNDER
HENRY VIII
EXAMINATIONAL ESSAY BY
NOVIKOV SERGEI
10th "B" GRADE, SCHOOL NO. 1276
MOSCOW - 1996
ENGLAND UNDER
HENRY THE EIGHTH.
Henry VIII Tudor (1491-1547)
was the second son of Henry VII.
His brother Arthur, being only 15, married to Catherine,
the daugter of the Spanish monarch.
But in a very few month he sickened and died.
Henty VII arranged that the young widow
should marry his second son Henry,
then 12 years of age, when he too should be 15.
A few years after settling this marriage, in 1509,
the King died of the gout.
King Henry the Eighth was just eighteen
years of age when he came to the throne.
People said he was a handsome boy, but
in later life he did not seem handsome at
all. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed,
large-faced, double-chinned fellow, as we
know from the portraits of him, painted by
the famous Hans Holbein*.
The king was anxious to make himself
popular, and the people, who had long dis-
liked the late king, believed to believe that
he deserved to be so.
He was extremely fond of show and display, and so were they. There-fore
there was great rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine, and when
they were both crowned. And the King fought at tournaments and always came
off victorious - for the courtiers took care of that - and there was a
general outcry that he was a wonderful man.
The prime favourites of the late King, who were engaged in money-
raising matters, Empson, Dudley, and their supporters, were accused of a
variety of crimes they really had been guilty; and they were pilloried, and
then beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, and the enrichment of the
King.
The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had mixed
himself up in a war on a continent of Europe, occasioned by the reigning
Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having at various times
married
into other royal families, and so led to their claiming a share in those
petty
Governments. The King, who discovered that he was very fond of the Pope,
sent a herald to the King of France, to say he must not make war
upon the father of all Christians. As the French King did not mind this
relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim King Henry
made to certain lands in France, war was declared between the two coun-
tries.
England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken
in by that country, which made its own terms with France when it could,
and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, a bold admiral, son of
the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the French
in this business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for,
skimming into the French harbour of Brest with only a few row-boats, he
attempted to take some strong French ships, well defended with cannons.
The upshot was, that he was left on board of one of them with not more than
about a dozen man, and was thrown into the sea and drowned.
***
After this great defeat the King took it into his head to invade France
in
person, first executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had
left in the Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to charge of his king-dom
in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by Maximi-lian,
Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and who took
pay in his service. The King might be successful enough in sham fights, but
his idea of real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of
bright colours that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in
making a vast display of a gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune,
however, flavoured him better than he deserved: he gave the French battle,
and they took such an anaccountable panic, and fled with such
swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the English the Battle of
Spurs**. Instead of following up his advantage, the King, finding that he
had had enough of real fighting, came home again.
The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage, had
taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the English gene-
ral, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions and crossed
the river Tweed. The two armies came up with one another when
the Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped upon
the Hill of Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English, when the hour
of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been drawn up in
five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect silence. So they, in
their turn, advanced to meet the English army, which came on the one long
line; and they attacked it with a body of spearman, under Lord Home.
At first they had the best of it; but the English fought with such valour,
that, when the Scottish King had almost made his way up to the Royal
standart, he was slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand
Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden Field. For a long time after-
wards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their king had not been
really killed in this battle, because no Englishman had found an iron belt
he wore about his body as a penance for having been an undutiful son. But,
whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and dagger, and the
ring from his finger, and his body was recognized by English gent-lemen who
had known the Scottish King well.
***
When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the French
King was contemplating peace. His Queen, dying at this time, he proposed,
though he was upwards of fifty years old, to marry King Henry's sister,
Princess Mary, who, becides, being only sixteen, was bet-
rothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of young Princesses were
not too much considered in such matters, the marriage was conclu-ded , and
the poor girl was escorted to France, where she was immidiately left as the
French King's bride, with only one of her English attendants. That one was
a pretty young girl named Anna Boleyn, niece of the Earl of
Surrey, who had been made Duke of Norfolk after the victory of Flodden
Field.
The French King died within three month, and left the young Queen a
young widow. The new French monarch, Francis I, seeing how important
it was to his interests that she should take for her second husband no one
but an Englishman, adviced her first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when King
Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home, to marry her. The
Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell him that he must
either do so then, or lose her forever, they were wedded; and Henry after-
wards forgave them. In making interest with King, the Duke of Suffolk had
addressed his most powerful favourite and adviser, Thomas Wol-sey*** - a
name very famous in history for its rise and downfall.
Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk, and
recieved so exellent education that he became a tutor to the family of Mar-
qius of Dorset, who afterwards got him appointed one of the late King's
chaplains. On the accession of Henry VIII, he was promoted and taken into
great favour with the King - whether he were a foreign monarch or an
English nobleman - was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal
Wolsey.
He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink. He was
wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and so was the King. He knew a good
deal of the Church learning of that time, much of which consisted of
finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in
arguing that black was white, or any other colour. This kind of learning
pleased the King too. For many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in
estimation with the King, and, being a man of greater ability, knew how to
manage him. Never had there been seen in England such state as that Lord
Cardinal kept. His wealth was equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the
Crown. His palaces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was
eight hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to toe in
flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious stones.
His followers tode on blood-horses, while he, with wonderful affectation of
humility in the midst of his great splendour, ambled on a mule.
Though the influence of his stately priest, a grand meeting was
arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in France, but
on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of friendship was to be
made on the occation, and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen
trumplets through all the principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain
day, the Kings of France and England, as companions and brothers in arms,
each attended by 18 followers, would hold a tournament against all knights
who might choose to come.
Charles, a new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead), wanted to
prevent that aliance between the two sovereigns, and came over to Eng-
land and secured Wolsey's interest by promising that his influence should
make him Pope when the next vacancy occured. On the day when the Em-
peror left England, the King and the Court went over to Calais, and thence
to the place of meeting, commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine,
great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents, gold
lace and gilt lions, and such things without end. And, in the midst of all,
the rich Cardinal outshone and outglittered all the noblemen and gentlemen
assembled. After a treaty had been made between the two Kings with as much
solemnity as if they had intended to keep it, the lists - 900 feet long,
and 320 broad - were opened for the tournament. Then, for ten days, the
two sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their polite
adversaries.
***
Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy renewal
of the war between England and France, in which the two Royal com-panions
longed very earnestly to damage one another. But, before it broke out
again, the Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the
evidence of a discharged servant - really for nothing, except the folly of
having believed in a friar of the name of Hopkins, who had pretended to be
a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the
Duke's son being destined to be very great in the land. It was believed
that the unfortunate Duke had given offence to the great Cardinal by
expressing his mind freely about the expense and absurdity of the whole
business of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded France
again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in another treaty of
peace between the two kingdoms, and the discovery that the Emperor of
Germany was not such a good friend to England in reality, as he pretend-ed
to be. Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to make him Pope, though
the King urged him. So the Cardinal and King together found out that the
Emperor of Germany was not a man to keep faith with. They broke off a
projected marriage between the King's daughter Mary, Prin-cess of Wales,
and that sovereign, and began to consider whether it might not be well to
marry the young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his eldest son.
***
There now arose at Wittemberg****, in Germany, the great leader of the
mighty change in England which is called The Reformation*****, and which
set the people free from their slavery to the priests. This was a learned
Doctor, named Martin Luther******, who knew all about them, for he had been
a priest, and even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of
Wickliffe******* had set a number of men thinking on this subject, and
Luther, finding one day to his great surprise, that there really was a book
called the New Testament which the priests did not allow to be read, and
which contained truths that they suppressed, began to be very vigorous
agains the whole body, from the Pope downward. It happened, while he was
yet only beginning his work or awakening the nation, that a friar named
Tetzel came into his neighbourhood selling what were called Indulgences, by
wholesale, to raise money for beautifying the St. Peter's Cathidral at
Rome. Those who bought an Indulgence of the Pope were supposed to buy
themselves from the punishment of Heaven for their offences. Luther told
the people that Indulgences were worthless bits of paper.
The King and the Cardinal were mightly indignant at this presumption;
and the King (with the help of Sir Thomas More********, a wise man, whom
the afterwards repaid by striking off
his head) even wrote a book about it, with
which the Pope was so well pleased that he
gave the King the title of Defender of the
Faith. The King and Cardinal also issued
flaming warnings to the people not to read
Luther's books, on pain of excommunica-
tion. But they did read them for all that; and
the rumour of what was in them spread far
and wide.
When this great change was thus going
on, the King began to show himself in his
truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, the pretty little girl who had gone
abroad to France with her sister, was by this time grown up to be very
beautiful, and was one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine.
Queen Catherine was no longer young or pretty, and it is likely that she
was not particularly good-tempered, having been always rather melan-choly,
and having been made more so by deaths of four of her children when they
were very young. So, the King fell in love with the fair Anne Boleyn. He
wanted to get rid of his wife and marry Anne.
Queen Catherine had been the wife of
Henry's brother Arthur. So the King called
his favourite priests about him, and said
that he thought that it had not been lawful
for him to marry the Queen.
They answered that it was a serious busi-
ness, and perhaps the best way to make it
right, would be for His Majesty to be de-
vorced. That was the answer the King was
pleased with; so they all went to work.
Many intrigues and plots took place to
get this devorce. Finally, the Pope issued
a commission to Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio (whom he sent over
from Italy for the purpose), to try the whole case in England. It is
supposed that Wolsey was the Queen's enemy, because she had reproved him
for his manner of life. But, he did not at first know that the King wanted
to marry Anne Boleyn, and when he did know it, he even went down on his
knees, in the endeavour to dissuade him.
The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black friars, in
London. On the opening of the court, when the King and Queen were call-
ed on to appear, that poor lady kneeled at the King's feet, and said that
she had come, a stranger, to his dominions, that she had been a good and
true wife for him for 20 years, and that she could acknowledge no power in
those Cardinals to try whether she should be considered his wife after all
that time, or should be put away. With that, she got up and left the court,
and would never afterwards come back to it.
It was a difficult case to try and the Pope suggested the King and
Queen to come to Rome and have it tried there. But by the good luck for the
King , word was brought to him about Thomas Cranmer, a learned Doctor of
Cambridge, who had prospered to urge the Pope on, by referring the case to
all the learned doctors and bishops, and getting their opinions that the
King's marriage was unlawful. The King, who was now in a hurry to marry
Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea, that sent for Cranmer.
It was bad for cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to render this
help. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the King from
marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant as he, to such a master as Henry,
would probably have fallen in any case; but he fell suddenly and heavily.
Soon he was arrested for high treason, and died on his way to Tower. Sir
Thomas More was made Chancellor in Wolsey's place.
***
Meanwhile, the opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors
and bishops and others, being at last collected, were forwarded to the
Pope, with an entreaty that he would now grant it. The unfortunate Pope,
who was a timid man, was half distracted between his fear of his authority
being set aside in England if he did not do as he was asked, and his dread
of offending the Emperor of Germany, who was Queen Catherine's neph-ew. In
this state of mind he still evaded and did nothing. So, the King took the
matter into his own hands, and made himself a head of whole Church.
However, he recompenced the clergy by allowing Luther's opinions. All these
events made Sir Thomas More, who was truly attached to the Church, resign.
Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and marry Anne
Boleyn without more ado, the King made Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury,
and directed Queen Catherine to leave the Court. She obeyed. but replied
that wherever she went, she was Queen of England still, and would remain
so, to the last. The King then married Anne Boleyn priva-tely, and the new
Archbishop of Cantebury, within half a year, declared his marriage with
Queen Catherine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen.
She might have known that no good could ever come with such wrong, and
that the King who had been so faithless and so cruel to his first wife,
could be more faithless and more cruel to the second. But Anne Boleyn knew
that too late, and bought it at dear price. Her marriage came to its
natural end. However, its natural end was
not a natural death for her. The Pope was
thrown into a very angry state of mind when
he heard of the King's marriage. Many of
English monks and friars did the same, but
the King took it quietly, and was very glad
when his Queen gave birth to a daughter,
who was christened Elizabeth, and declared
Princess of Wales as her sister Mary had
already been.
One of the most atrocious features of
the reign was that Henry VIII was always
trimming between the reformed religion with the Pope, the more of his own
subjects he roasted alive for not holding the Pope's opinions. Thus, an
unfortunate student named John Frith, and a poor simple tailor named Andrew
Hewet who loved him very much, and said that whatever John Frith believed
he believed, were burnt in Smithfield - to show what a capital Christian
the King was.
But these were speedily followed by two much greater victims, Sir
Thomas More, and John Fisher , the Bishop of Rochester. The latter, who was
a good and amiable old man, had committed no greater offence then believing
in Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid of Kent - another of those ridiculous
women who pretended to be inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenly
revelations, though they indeed uttered nothing but evil nonsen-se. For
this offence - as it was pretended, but really for denying the king to be
the supreme Head of the Church - he got into trouble, and was put in
prison. Even then he might have died naturally, but the Pope, to spite the
King, resolved to make him a cardinal. So the King decided that Fisher
should have no head on which to wear a red Cardinal's hat. He was tried
with all unfairnence and injustice, and sentenced to death. He died like a
noble and virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behind him.
The King supposed that Sir Thomas More would be frightened by this
example. But, as he was not to be easily terrified, and, thoroughly
believed in the Pope, had made up his mind that the King was not rightful
Head of the Church, he positively refused to say that he was. For this cri-
me he too was tried and sentenced, after having been in prison a whole
year.
When he was doomed to death, and came away from his trial with the edge
of executioner's axe turned towards him - as was always done in those times
when a state prisoner came to that hopeless pass - he bore it quite
serenely, and gave his blessing to his son, who pressed through the crowd
in Westminster Hall and kneeled down to recieve it.
But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on his way back to his prison, and
his favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, a very good woman, rushed through
the guards to kiss him and to weep upon his neck, he has over-come at last.
He soon recovered and never more showed any feeling but courage. When he
had laid his head upon the block, he asked jokingly the executioner to let
him put his beard out of the way because for that thing, at least, had
never committed any treason. Then his head was strucked off at a blow.
These two executions were worthy of King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More
was one of the most virtuous men in his dominions, and the Bishop was one
of his eldest and truest friends.
***
When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope was enra-ged
and prepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms against the King of
England and dethrone him. The King took all possible precautions to keep
that document out of his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress a
great number of English monasteries and abbeys.
This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom Tho-mas
Cromwell was the head. It was carried on through to some few years to its
entire completion. There is no doubt that many of these religious es-
tablishments imposed upon the people in every possible way; that they had
images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculously mo-ved by
Heaven; that they had bits of coal which they said had fried Saint
Lawrense, and bits of toe-nails which they said belonged to other famous
saints, etc.; and that all these bits of rubbish were called Relics, and
adored by the ignorant people. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt
either, that the King's men punished the good monks with the bad; did great
injustice; demolished many beautiful things and many valuable libra-ries;
destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass windows, fine pave-ments, and
carvings; and that the whole court were ravenously greedy and rapacious for
the division of this great spoil among them. The King seems to have grown
almost mad in the ardour of this pursuit, for he declared Thomas a Becket a
traitor, though he had been dead for many years, and had his body dug up
out of his grave. The gold and jewels on his shrine filled two great
chests, and 8 men were needed to carry them away.
These things caused great discontent among the people. The monks who
were driven out of their homes and wandered about encouraged their
discontent, and there were, consequently, great risings in Licincolnshire
and Yorkshire. These were put down by terrific executions, from which the
monks themselves did not escape.
***
The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by
this time dead, and the King was by this ti-
me as tired of his second Queen as he had
been of his first. As he had fallen in love
with Anne when she was in the service of
Catherine, so he now fell in love with ano-
ther lady in the service of Anne.
The King resolved to have Anne Boleyn's
head to marry Lady Jane Seymour. So, he
brought a number of charges against Anne,
accusing her of dreadful crimes which she
had never committed, and implicating in
them her own brother and certain gentlemen in her service. As the lords and
councillors were afraid of the King, they brought in Anne Boleyn guilty,
and the other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too.
They were all sentenced to death. Anne Boleyn tried to soften her hus-band
by touching letters, but as he wanted her to be executed, she was soon
beheaded.
There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very
anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this new
murder; and that, when he heard it, he rose up in great spirits and ordered
out his dogs to go a-hunting. He married Jane Seymour the very next day.
Jane Seymour lived just long enough to give birth to a son who was
christened Edward, and then to die of a fever.
***
Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property for
purposes of religion and education. But the great families had been so
hungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued for such
objects. Even Miles Coverdale, who did the people the inestimable service
of translating the Bible into English (which the unreformed religion never
permitted to be done), was left in poverty while the great families
clutched the Church lands and money. The people had been told that when the
Crown came into possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax
them. But they were taxed afresh directly afterwards.
One of the most active writers on a Church's side against the King was
a member of his own family - a sort of distant cousin, Reginald Pole by
name - who attacked him in the most violent manner (though he recieved a
pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church for his pen, day
and night. He was beyong the King's reach, in Italy.
The Pope made Reginald Pole a cardinal; but, so much against his will,
that it is thought he had hopes of marrying the Princess Mary. His being
made a high priest, however, put an end to that. His mother, the Countess
of Salisbury - who was unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's reach
-was the last of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. When she was told to
lay her grey head upon the block, she answered the executioner that her
head had never committed treason, and if he wanted her head, he should
seize that. So, she ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner
striking at her, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood. And even when they
held her down upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved
to be no party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people bore, as
they had borne everything else.
Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield were
continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted to death -
still to show what a good Christian the King was. He defied the Pope and
his Bull, which was now issued, and had come into England; but he bur-ned
innumerable people whose only offence was that they differed from the
Pope's religios opinions.
All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The national
spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom from this time. The
people who were executed for treason, the wives and friends of the "bluff"
King, spoke of him on the scafford as a good and gentle man.
The Parliament were as bad as the rest, and gave the King whatever he
wanted. They gave him new powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure,
anyone whom he might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure they
passed was an Act of Six Articles*********, commonly called at the time
"the whip with six strings", which punished offences against the Pope's
opinions, without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the monkish
religion.
Cranmer would have modified it, if he could; but he had not the power,
being overborne by the Romish party. As one of the articles declared that
priests should not marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wife
and children into Germany, and began to tremble at his danger. This whip of
six strings was made under the King's own eye. It should never be for-
gotten of him how cruelly he supported the Popish doctrines when there was
nothing to be got by opposing them.
This monarch now thought of taking another wife. He proposed to the
French King to have some of the ladies of the French Court exhibited be-
fore him, that he might make his Royal choice. But the French King ans-
wered that he would rather not have his ladies to be shown like horses at a
fair. He proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who replied that she
might have thought of such a match if she had had two heads. At last
Cromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess in Germany -
those who had the reformed religion were call Protestants, because their
leaders had protested against the abuses and impositions of the unreform-ed
Church - named Anne of Cleves, who was beautiful, and would answer the
purpose admirably.
The King sent over the famous painter, Hans Holbein, to take her a
portrait. Hans made her out to be so good-looking that the King was satis-
fied, and the marriage was arranged. But Hans had flattered the Princess.
When the King first saw her, he swore she was "a great Flanders mare", and
said he would never marry her. Being obliged to do it, he would not give
her the presents he had prepared, and would never notice her. He never
forgave Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates from that time.
It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformed
religion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of the Duke
of Norfolk, Catherine Howard. Falling in love with her on the spot, the
King soon divorced Anne of Cleves on pretence that she had been previously
betrothered to someone else, and married Catherine. It is probable that on
his wedding day he sent his faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had his
head struck off.
It soon came out that Catherine Howard was not a faithful wife, and
again the dreadful axe made the King a widower. Henry then applied him-self
to superintending the composition of a religious book called "A ne-cessary
doctrine for any Christian Man".
He married yet once more. Yes, strange to say, he found in England
another woman who would become his wife, and she was Catherine Parr, widow
of Lord Latimer. She leaned towards the reformed religion, and it is some
comfort to know, that she argued a variety of doctrinal points with him on
all possible occasions. After one of these conversations the King in a very
black mood actully instructed Gardier, one of his Bishops who favoured the
Popish opinions, to draw a bill of accusation against her to the scaffold.
But one of the Queen's friends knew about it, and gave her timely notice.
She fell ill with terror, but managed the King so well when he came to
entrap her into further statements - by saying that she had only spoken on
such points to divert his mind and to get some points of infor-mation from
his extraordinary wisdom - that he gave her a kiss and called her a
sweatheart. And, when the Chancellor came next day to take her to the
Tower, the King honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a
fool. So near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was her
escape!
***
A few more horrors, and this reign was over. There was a lady, Anne
Askew, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protestant opinions, and whose
husband being a fierce Catholic, turned her out of his house. She came to
London, and was considered as offending against the six articles, and was
taken to the Tower, and put upon the rack - probably because it was hoped
that she might, in her agony, criminate some obnoxious per-sons. She was
tortured in a most cruel manner without uttering a cry, but afterwards they
had to carry her to the fire in a chair. She was burned with three others,
a gentleman, a clergyman, and a tailor; and so the world went on.
Either the King became afraid of the power of Duke of Norfolk, and his
son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some offence, but he resolved to
pull them down, to follow all the rest who were gone. The son was tried
first - of course for nothing - and defended himself bravely; but all the
same he was found guilty, and was executed. Then his father's turn came.
But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, and the Earth
was to be rid of him at last. When he was found to be dying, Cranmer was
sent for, and came with all speed, but found him speechless. In that hour
he perished. He was in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the thirty-
eighth of his reign.
Henry the Eighth, a bloody tyrant, has been favoured by some Protest-
ant writers, because the Reformation was achieved in his time. But the
mighty merit of his lies with other men and not with him.
What else can I say about Henry VIII?
He was more a beast than a man.
He executed hundreds of people.
Though he was wise enough to rule a country.
His reign was bloody and he did not do a lot for his country.
His six marriages caused the country to finish
all treaties with the Roman Church.
And the King's bloody deeds ashamed the mighty England.
For Charles Dickens he was the most
untolerable man, a shame for humanity.
Notes.
1. Hans Holbein (1497-1543)* - the German painter. Known as Hans Holbein
Jr.
2. the Battle of Spurs** was held on the 16th of August, 1513 a.d. During
it the French cavalry fled because of the advancing armies of Henry VIII
and Maximilian I.
3. Thomas Wolsey (1473-1530)***, Chancellor of England since 1515 till
1529. Since 1514 - the Archbishop of York, since 1515 - the Cardinal. In
1529 he was arrested for treason.
4. Wittemberg**** - the Saxon city where in 1517 Luther read his 95
thesises against the Catholic Church.
5. the Reformation***** - the movement against the Ca-tholic Church in
Western and Central Europe. It's crea-tor was Luther.
6. Martin Luther (1483-1546)****** - the leader of the Re-formation. He
also translated the Bible into German.
7. John Wickliffe (1330-1384)******* - the English refor-mator. He said
that the Pope was not necessary and wan-ted the Church to abandon its
lands.
8. Thomas More (1487 - 1535)******** - the great lawer and political
leader, was against the Reformation. Being a writer, he created "Utopia".
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of the King, knowing that More had helped
the King to dismiss Catherine of Aragon, caused Henry to execute this
clever and honest Chancellor of England.
9. Act of Six Articles*********. Was written in 1539. It abolished the
monasteries and showed that England was interested in religion and that
damage inflicted to the Church was a crime. So, many Protestants were
executed.
List of the Used Literature.
1. J. J. Bell. The History of England.
2. L. V. Sidorchenko. Absolute Monarchy.
3. I. I. Burova. Just for Pleasure. Intermediate Level.
4. D. Capewell. The History of English Monarchy.